waterfalls

I'm sitting here watching a beautiful little waterfall in a small park hidden away in the neighborhoods of the town I grew up in. Never knew it existed till today.
This waterfall reminds me of something I had in my room when I lived in Colorado. It looked almost exactly like this but on a much smaller scale. I loved listening to that little fountain trickle water in my room, as I laid on the floor on the mattress I slept on. I moved there without a bed and someone gave me a mattress and box spring, but that was it. It never occurred to me to buy a frame. My room was this little oasis. Friends would come over and just felt at peace in there. I had purple lights strung up, and the low lighting and trickling water fountain created this very peaceful setting. Throw in opening the window to let in the cool Colorado breeze, and you got yourself a party. At least the kind of parties I enjoy.
A part of me truly loves all the Me time I get to have. Outside of work, my life is filled with calm, peaceful moments like this, a lot of the time. I think if I grew up in the woods, not like Nell, but an educated Nell, with even just a Dad to teach me to read and write and survive on my own; well I think I would be happy ALL of the time. If he never told me stories of princesses meeting princes or falling in love and getting married and having kids, would I even know to expect that? Or desire that? Would I even feel like I'm missing out? When he eventually died and I was left all alone in the woods, would I feel like I needed someone else? I wouldn't have Facebook or even know what that is, to tell me that, as a 34 year old woman, I should be married with kids by now. I think I would be completely fulfilled, with the animals as my friends, all around me, like Snow White but without all those little people to take care of and certainly without that Prince that I think "someday will come."
It's not even Facebook that's the problem. To be honest I've hidden from my newsfeed pretty much any friend who is married with kids, so about 99.9% of them. It's more the reminder when I'm around them with their significant other and other couples. I'm ok if it's just the 2 of us, because then I can kind of pretend it's 7 years ago, back when we were both single. All my friends start out that way, but for some unknown reason, I am the only one that doesn't move forward with them. I get to stay stuck year after year incapable of meeting any of the milestones they meet: seriously dating, engagement, marriage, buying a house, having a baby. Instead I just remain in the same status I'm always in: single.  I'm always alone, which is fine for the mops part because I love having time to write and watch my shows and decompress without having to take care of someone else or meet someone else's needs all the time. When I'm by myself and haven't been around people much for a long while, that's actually better. I get used to it. I can forget about wanting someone, because it's not being thrown in my face by friends who were once just like me. I can just live in my bubble of awesome me-time, just as long as no one comes along to pop it by simply moving forward with their life and meeting milestones every other 30 something seems to make. The only person I want to come and pop my me-bubble is another single girl, one who actually wants to get to know me, one who is interested in making connections with other human beings, and not just living a fake life on the Internet.
A friend of a friend (who also had her significant-other at this park where I wandered over and found the waterfall at) asked me what was new. And I literally did not even answer her. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to say nothing, but it's always nothing. Nothing is new with me. I have no one, I'm still alone, I'm not moving forward in my life. Nothing is happening. It is better than bad things happening to me, so I'll take it over that. I literally couldn't think of anything to say. I didn't really want to talk about my trip to Niagara Falls in May, because for one thing it's not that recent anymore,  but another reason is I just didn't want to hear the faked interest of someone when they say "oh that's cool," but really they mean, "you went alone? The story doesn't even involved another person? That sounds depressing and sad. You're life isn't very exciting. I need a wedding or a baby or even just the talk of 'when will y'all get engaged', to excite me. To have something real to talk about. What else is there besides love and babies? That's right, the answer is nothing. Building families is what life's about. At least according to most of the population and what most advertisers appeal to, along with what most movies are about. Finding love. I remember when I was 16 I saw My Best friend's Wedding. What I most got out of that movie was that Julia Roberts was alone at the end of the movie. She didn't get the guy, the "best friend." Even though that seemed pretty obvious that was going to happen, I was 16, I don't know what I thought would happen, I just knew that the majority of the movies I had seen up until then and ALL the Disney movies I was raised on, told me that in the end, the girl always got the guy. So when she was alone eating her cake and she didn't even meet a potential boyfriend, there was just her guy friend (who was gay); I was like wow! It's ending with her all alone! That is so cool. When had that ever happened in a movie? It impressed me and quickly became one of my favorite movies of all time. I watched it a million times after that, quoting "you're never gonna be jello" and other lines endlessly with my best friend at the time. I had no idea at the time that I would be "Jules" one day. She was turning 30 and they had made a pack that they'd get married if they were ever to still be single at the very old age of 30!! That cracks me up now. 30 sounded old back then. But I appreciated so much, that a movie ended with the girl not getting the guy, for once. Even at 16, I caught that that was a big deal, and it meant something to me. I never thought I'd surpass 30 and still be alone, but here I am, 34. I feel like it's never going to happen. I just can't imagine connecting with someone in a deep way again. It just seems foreign to me now. I guess it's been too long, I just can't even remember how to do it or what it feels like. I mean 9 years is a hell of a long time. Meeting someone that I'm both attracted to physically and personality-wise, that to me feels like winning the lottery. Sure you would love if it happens, you'd feel like the luckiest girl in the world, but the odds are way stacked against you and it doesn't seem likely to ever happen, at least not to you.

Saw this on Facebook this evening- it was a cartoon of a girl riding a rainbow and it said: "a great future doesn't require a great past." My past consists of dating only 2 guys, both of whom wanted to marry me... until they didn't, so actually that's better than someone who say has dated 20 people none of which ever considered them to be marriage material. But my past doesn't determine my future. Having 9 years of nobody remotely considering me to be someone they wanted to seriously date AND me reciprocating that, because that is the key; doesn't mean my future doesn't hold that ONE person that wants to spend every day of their life with me, and vice versa. Ya never know for sure, I guess.
I never knew that waterfall existed until today. But just because I didn't know it did, doesn't mean it didn't exist before today. It's always been there. It just took me living here most of my life to find it. The same logic can be applied to almost anything. Just because I don't think anyone out there exists for me, doesn't mean they don't exist. It just means I haven't met her yet. It just means she hasn't found me yet. Hopefully one day I'll find my perfect waterfall... because damn...I love me a good waterfall.